


Consultation

by lipsum



Category: due South
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-23
Updated: 2005-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 23:14:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lipsum/pseuds/lipsum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>KOWALSKI CONSULTING<br/>Tarot * Auras * Palmistry</p>
<p>Written for the mix-n-match challenge at ds_flashfiction in 2005.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consultation

The address on the business card Diana had slipped her ("Give it a try. He's nothing like you'd expect. And he's really good.") led her to a part of town she usually drove away from as quick as possible. 

Battered 1974 Corvairs and Impalas and the occasional 1982 econobox took up most of the curb spaces. She went around the block five times, double-checking the address-- the sign over the shopfront said "Tony's Billiards"-- before parking in front of the porn shop (ew ew ew!) next door. 

Up close she saw the smaller sign: 

KOWALSKI CONSULTING  
Tarot * Auras * Palmistry 

A bell rang as she went in. The front room, cut off from the sunlight by a heavy red curtain over the shopfront window and dimly lit by a single lamp, contained a sparsely-stuffed couch, a wooden chair, and two magazines ( _Popular Mechanics_ , May 1986, and _Better Homes and Gardens_ , June 1987) on an endtable. A voice called out, "Come on in back, I don't got any appointments now." 

He wore his hair bleached and standing straight up, and his suit jacket wrinkled with a teeshirt that said Rawhide. He remained seated behind his desk, eyeing her up and down, and picked up one of the brightly-colored decks from the bookshelf beside him. "Cards first," he said. 

"You're the expert," Frannie said, sitting down. He didn't ask any questions or look in her eyes, just started shuffling, so she explained, "My husband took off on me--" 

"Husband. Got it," he said. 

"--after only three months! Can you believe it? I don't know what to do now--" 

"Got it," he said, nodding and shuffling. 

"--can't afford the rent on my own, and Diana says-- but I should explain about Diana because she got married right out of high school and she's taking this class in--" 

Kowalski drew a card and slapped it on the desk. Queen of Pentacles. "I see a tall dark stranger in your future," he said, "Now get the hell out of my office." 

"What?" Frannie popped to her feet. "You can't do that! I need help! What am I gonna..." She wiped a tear away from her eye, quickly, as if he wasn't going to notice. What an asshole. Diana had lost her mind. 

"Do you want to sit down?" he said. "I can probably help you, if you'll _listen_ to me. But I don't need to hear all the boring stories you usually tell people to hide how crappy you think your life is." 

Her legs folded under her, dropping her into the chair. 

It wasn't true. Sure, Johnny had disappeared pretty fast and her job sucked rocks but her life-- it-- damn it. God damn it. "You really are psychic?" she said. "That's pretty obnoxious." 

He smiled. "I got no special powers. I live by my wits, a calling that affords me at times no great measure of security." 

So she stayed. And listened. And told him stories, but not the ones that revealed everything that didn't matter. She took only some of his advice, which later he said was probably the smartest thing any of his clients could do. 

She usually saw him once a month. After the first couple times he gave her hell for not doing what she said she would, she learned to live less on dreams and more on actions-- so when she got a little crush on him for a while there, she kept it to herself. He seemed to have someone. 

She didn't know much about his life, didn't think about it most of the time, so on the Tuesday evening four years later when she found him in tears at his desk, she had to swallow her shock before she went over there to put her arms around him. 

"It's my dad," he eventually admitted. 

"You told me he died when you were a kid. Car accident." 

"He, uh-- not a car accident. He was murdered." 

"Oh my God! I'm so sorry, Ray." 

"I was eighteen. Changed my whole fuckin' life." Glancing around, he added, "Or maybe not. I ended up _here_." 

Frannie reached for a nice way to say, _So why are you falling apart_ now _?_

But Ray volunteered, "My mother killed him. She went to prison for it, anyway. Lately, I've been thinking... Christ, Fran, we've used up half of your appointment on my stupid problems. Let's--" 

"Let me help you," she said. "That's what friends do." At his surprised look, she said, "I can count on you to look at things completely differently from any of my other friends. You've helped me so much. I'd like to help you." 

"Thanks, Frannie," he said, holding her hand, "but what I really need is a cop." 

"Oh! That's perfect. Ray, my brother's a cop." 

~ 

"Ah, yes, the dead meatpacker thing, like I couldn't have guessed. Look, don't you worry-- the moment I get a chance I'm gonna check out the lead you gave my sister, and I'll give you a call. Now is there anything else?" 

"Yeah, there's something else. The dead meatpacker was my father, you lazy son of a bitch. And if you check things out now, there's still a chance you can save my mother's life." 

 

~ the end ~


End file.
